A Baltimore man was shot three times yesterday by a city officer after police chased the man to his grandmother's house in East Baltimore.
Egan Davis, 23, was shot in the right thigh, hip and arm by Officer Frank Nellis, 27, who has been on the city police force since March 1998. Davis was taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was listed in serious condition.
He was shot as he paced on a red metal awning over the front of a house in the 1500 block of N. Lakewood Ave.
"My speculation is he was trying to decide whether he could jump safely," said Maj. Michael J. Andrew, commander of the Eastern District. "At one point he reached back into the window. That, coupled with screams coming from inside the house and not knowing whether he had a weapon, that's when the officer fired three shots."
Officers did not recover any weapon from the man, Andrew said.
The shooting occurred after a chase that began when officers saw a silver-colored BMW traveling at speeds of up to 80 mph on Monument Street about 11:45 a.m., Andrew said.
The car, which nearly struck a person on Monument Street, was stolen, he said.
The BMW headed east on Monument Street before turning north onto Edison Highway. From Edison it turned onto Biddle Street and headed west, Andrew said.
A man got out of the car on Kenwood Avenue, just around the corner from Lakewood, and fled, Andrew said.
Officers, who had lost sight of the man, were alerted to his whereabouts by a police helicopter, Andrew said.
The man kicked in the back door at the house on North Lakewood and went inside, Andrew said.
Two plainclothes officers in the Eastern District's Operational Flex Unit followed him through the back door, while two others entered through the front door, Andrew said.
Seconds later, the man was seen going through a second-story window onto the awning, where he began pacing back and forth as officers ordered him to lie down and put his hands where officers could see them, Andrew said.
Sarah Bell said she considers the shooting of her grandson unjustified.
"He didn't have a weapon on him," Bell said. "Not a gun. Not a knife. Nothing."
She acknowledges that he kicked in her back door but "he wasn't threatening anyone in the house."
Bell said she didn't realize her grandson had been shot until someone called to tell her, because officers wouldn't allow her to leave the residence.
Davis, who underwent surgery yesterday, has not been charged.
